Critical Armor has now tested and recommends Net Nanny Content Filtering. In the near future, we will detail the steps for setting up Net Nanny in a home school setting or for general use. Three things primarily drove the switch from Mobicip (still an excellent product).
- Net Nanny allows a parent to create “Custom Filters” and actually document the reasons behind each domain or group of domains one allows. This prevents confusion later when looking at a long list of allowed domains. Unless good notes are taken, one might not remember and wonder why did this one get allowed? Net Nanny has a very slick facility built in to manage this information as well as manage access on these groups at as granular a level as one might need.
- Net Nanny provides a very simple “disable” feature. This functionality exists in K9 Web Protection but can be a little clunky in Mobicip. Using this feature, a parent can unlock all blocking for a certain amount of time (15, 30, 45, 1 hour, or until the next reboot) to be able to install updates, maintain the system, or for closely watched open browsing.
- Net Nanny seems to be a little more flexible when dealing with Microsoft updates and other backend processes. Nothing definite here, but there seems to be a little better understanding of all the sites Windows 10 uses to simply check for updates and so forth. This would not be a compelling reason on its own, but it is nice benefit.
Here’s a coupon that will take 25% of the annual cost: Save 25% on NetNanny Parental Controls
There are two minor downsides to Net Nanny. First, it costs about $10 more per year than Mobicip, but honestly the administration of the system would be worth twice that alone. Second, Net Nanny doesn’t claim to work on Chromebooks. Unfortunately, while Mobicip supports Chromebooks officially, Critical Armor has never found any success in this area, even after several attempts working with Mobicip support.
Keep building the Castle!